I'm currently a student and learning 16mm filming, and I was just wondering the full workflow for film.

Right now, all we're doing is getting a 100ft 16mm daylight roll from the school and shoot on it and turn it into the lab guy who sends it out and gets it back and then the editing lab at the school does a (really bad) "telecine" transfer. I get that that is the basic workflow for film, but I was wondering if someone could just layout the entire workflow from getting the film to actually making the print to be projected on screen.

This sounds enormously like a homework question, but here goes anyway. Since this is a cinematography forum, I'll omit discussion of sound and also intricacies like titles, effects and colour timing which can be done in a variety of ways.

Traditional workflow:

Shoot and process negative
Make workprint
Cut workprint
Cut negative to match workprint
Make interpositive from cut neg
Make internegative from interpositive
Make prints from internegative.

More recent workflow:

Shoot and process negative
Make video transfer
Edit video transfer
Cut negative to match video
Make interpositive from cut neg
Make internegative from interpositive
Make prints from internegative.

Most recent and current workflow:

Shoot and process negative
Make video transfer
Edit video transfer
High-resolution scan of selects
Electronically assemble finished movie
Record finished movie out to film
Make duplicates, either having made an interpos and interneg from the recorded output or, more rarely, having recorded multiple negatives.

Thanks a lot for the response. And no, it's not a homework question. My school is more focused on actually shooting projects so I don't have (traditional) homework. Lectures, workshops, and shooting only. And I've been around here long enough that I would feel weird asking professionals to do my homework for me.

Thanks for the recommendation, David. The book is still available, and selling steadily, though I suspect there are still a few members of this list who haven't got it

Phil's otherwise excellent workflows did leave out a small stage or two in the traditional film flows: after cutting the negative to match work print (or to match digital edit via edl), the neg is colour graded (timed) and an answer print is made for approval. Only after this approval is the interpos made.

Similarly in the third model (DI), after "electronically assemble finished movie" there is the colour correction stage.

It's worth mentioning these stages as colour correction / grading / timing is something the cinematographer wants to be involved in wherever possible.